The Whale's Footprints - Rick Boyer (32 page)

"But why would Andy, or anybody else, want
these?" asked Mary, leaning over the table and staring at the
rocks and the large graphs.

"I have absolutely no idea," said Calvin
Beard.

I tried another tack, filling Beard in on Andy's
murder, and asking him if he could think of any economic value the
things on the table before us could have.

"'Well," he said, almost absent-mindedly,
"both the cores and the profiles reveal the presence of rift
basins. These are known to have hydrocarbon potential."

"Hydrocarbon potential. Then you mean—"

"Oil, Dr. Adams. High-grade crude petroleum."

"I've heard that before, it seems to me,"
said Mary.

"Uh-huh," said Beard. "We've known
about the oil for over twenty years. In the mid-seventies, if you'll
recall, there was big debate about whether or not to exploit the rift
basins under Georges Bank. There was a lot of concern that such
development would endanger the fisheries. In the end, the
environmentalists and fishermen won, and the Bank was declared off
limits."

"
So what's the big deal with this?" asked
Joe, nodding his head down at the rocks and graphs.

"I don't know, except that it's not Georges
Bank; it's Nantucket Island."

"Tell me what you see here," I said,
sweeping my hand over the table.

"Okay, first of all, these core samples . . .
This is how they'd stack up, roughly," explained Beard, as he
quickly arranged the cores one above the other, "which reveals a
limestone cap on top. Underneath it is a series of conglomerate
sandstone formations—which are these cores, here—each with high
hydrocarbon yield and good permeability. Permeability in the rock is
essential for the petroleum to seep through it. Otherwise, oil wells
wouldn't work. So in a nutshell, what we have here is a classic
example of a site that could be very feasibly exploited. If it
weren't for the fact that the environmental impact studies ruled it
out."

"Who knows about these samples, and the test
well?"

"Just us. The USGS. And the people at the
Oceanographic Institute. We work together on these profiles."

"Who did the drilling?" I asked. "You,
or WHOI?"

"Actually, neither. We contracted the drilling
out to a private company."

"Whose name is?"

"A firm called OEI. It's out of New Bedford."

"Oceanic Enterprises, Incorporated," I
said.

"
How'd you know?"

"Calvin, can we use
your phone a second?"

* * *

"But you still don't have a direct tie-in, I
don't think," said Paul Keegan over the phone. "I mean,
sure, the cores and charts show that Nantucket's sitting on a pool of
oil. So what? They're telling you that no development can take place
there."

"No legal development. Obviously, OEI wants to
sink an oil well
sub rosa.
That would explain everything, Andy's murder, the break-ins, the New
Bedford connection with the hocked radio, everything."

"I'll be up around three, Doc. Hold tight till
then. Where's Joe?"

"Up in Boston meeting with people at the D.A.'s
office. He gave me your number just before he left. Listen Paul, we
really appreciate all you've tried to do for Jack. But now that the
indictment's handed down, we really need you more than ever—"

"I hear you, and I agree that this latest
development is important. It could even be what clears Jack. But let
me tie up a few loose ends down here first. Joe and I have indirectly
succeeded where the state guys from Rhode Island failed: we've got
Eddie Falcone sitting in the hot seat, finally."

"Did that guy, the Drugstore, take the stand?"

"
Oh yeah. And Slinky's squirming. He motioned me
aside privately and hinted that he's willing to plea-bargain. That's
no surprise, since he's facing a federal rap from the DEA on this
one. What we're talking here, we're talking five to ten in a federal
pen, like Atlanta. The Atlanta pen. It's the modern day version of
Andersonville. If you were facing five to ten in that hellhole,
wouldn't you want to plea-bargain?"

"Sure would."

"Well, that's what we got here. Now, being out
of state, Joe and I are about through down here in Providence. But
the federal thing, the drugs, that we can serve up on a platter to
the federal prosecutors in Boston."

"I'll meet you up here around three."

"Fine. By the way, Doc, has the senior
Cunningham been calling you?"

"Boyd Cunningham? Andy's dad? Once."

"Uh-huh. Well, he keeps calling us. Wants to
know if we've got the people who killed his son."

"That's what he was asking me. And he keeps
calling Jack, too. I kept quiet. What are you telling him?"

"That we're following some promising leads, and
that we'll have the killer, we hope, before too long. He keeps asking
about old man Hartzell—keeps asking where he can find him. He
sounds dangerous, like he's got blood in his eye."

"Well, it might be wise to explain to him, next
time he calls, that it seems less and less likely that Hartzell had
anything to do with Andy's murder."

"Right. Now, sit tight. I don't want you and Joe
poking around up there and blowing the whistle before the time is
ripe. We'll plan a strategy. Maybe pick up some of the people from
OEI for questioning separately—see how their stories jibe. But what
we don't want at this time, we don't want them to get the slightest
hint we're onto them."

I told him not to worry,
just to meet us at the cottage at three so we could plan it all out.

* * *

Calvin Beard accepted the chilled glass of white and
brushed the crumbs of fresh baguette off his sweater. He was sitting
on our deck, bathed in the red-gold light of the dying sun. Sitting
next to him was the trim, athletic Paul Keegan, replete with crew cut
and square jaw. He was probably thinking to himself, "We're
looking for a few good men . .

Joe was talking with Mary next to the porch door. I
was cutting cheese, pate, and bread and pouring wine. After the
appetizers, while waiting for Mary's onion soup, we convened in the
porch where Calvin Beard spread out a seismic reflection profile on
the table and weighted it down with beach rocks so it wouldn't blow.

"Now these reflection profiles are graphs of
echo soundings through rock," he said, tracing his hand along
the wavy lines. "The sonar pulser works like a sonar depth
finder, or a fish finder. The echoes that are reflected are put on
this paper. Different types of rock and mud have different echoes,
and these appear on the graph paper as different types of wavy lines.
To the trained eye, they reveal the type of rock and the thickness of
the layer. This baseline here is the ocean floor. Okay, and here, you
can all see the differing densities and layers of rock underneath it.
The location is Nantucket Shoals. The other profiles you found in the
bedposts are of the same general area."

"And these are worth a lot of money," said
Joe, learning over the table, "they're worth killing for?"

"I would hope not, Lieutenant. The value of the
reflection profile is that it lets us get a peek at the ocean floor
without drilling for core samples. As I told Dr. and Mrs. Adams
earlier, it's incredibly expensive to drill from a ship. The cost
seems to expand geometrically with the depth of the water. And, if
you add shifting currents and strong winds and tides, the cost is
soon prohibitive."

"
So what these do, they tell you where to drill
and where to forget it."

"Pretty much."

"So let's put the package together, then. Core
samples from Nantucket hole, dug in eighty-one. These reflection
profiles from Nantucket Shoals and surrounding ocean areas, which
show—what? Promising sites for oil drilling?"

"Precisely. A virtual guarantee of connecting
with high-grade crude."

"But it's illegal," said Joe. "And,
even if legal, incredibly expensive to undertake. Which is why our
friend Doc here has thought out a neat little scenario to explain it
all. Haven't you, Doc?"

All eyes stared at me.

"It's just a theory. But here goes. Back in the
mid-seventies Henderson and Whitesides—and this professor Chisholm,
or whoever the third partner is—start up Oceanic Enterprises with
the full expectation of reaping the rewards of undersea exploration.
But the enterprise gets bogged down by the ruling against oil
exploitation of the fishing grounds. The company does odd drilling
jobs, but makes no big scores. Recently, things get so bad that they
look around for other avenues. Maybe Chisholm, since he's the
full-timer at OEI and presumably the undersea expert, remembers the
core samples they took from the Nantucket hole and gave to the USGS.
These apparently all but prove rich oil deposits. Also, the partners
at OEI are aware that the USGS has other data—namely these seismic
reflection profiles—that show rich fields underlying the ocean
throughout the area. If they can get their hands on these proofs,
they could attract full-scale development of a small well or two in
the area."

Beard shook his head.

"I don't see how that would be possible, Dr.
Adams. Any exploitation of the shelf couldn't go unnoticed. And what
company, legitimate or otherwise, would undertake such a costly
venture when they'd be certain to be intercepted?"

"You're right. No company would even think of
undertaking it. But what if the venture were land based? And what if
it were legal?"

Beard twisted up his face as though he'd just
swallowed a lemon. He cleared his throat.

"
Wait a second. The key to any mineral
exploration is the Minerals Management Service, a federal agency that
is in charge of offering drilling leases for sale at auction. The
continental shelf is part of the exclusive economic zone set up by
the president in eighty-three. It's the same zone, incidentally, that
extends U.S. fishing rights offshore for two hundred miles. The
government has regulatory power over it. Follow me?"

"You're saying that the feds regulate the whole
shmear," said Joe, "and people can't sneak around drilling
for oil on the shelf without getting caught."

Beard spoke up. "That's exactly what I'm—did
you say land based?"

"Land based, on privately held land on
Tuckernuck Island."

Beard stroked his chin and looked up, staring off
over the ocean.

"I still don't think they'd allow it. The state,
I mean. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts, or any other state, has
the power of injunction against anything that threatens a fragile
environment. Now, I know that mineral rights in this state are
reserved for landowners. So I don't see how it would be illegal
initially. But I'm sure that eventually they'd go to court and close
down the well."

"I'm sure they would, too. Don't you see?"

He thought a second before replying.

"You mean that's why they're being so
secretive?"

"
Sure. That's why they hired Andrew Cunningham
to befriend that—what's his name?"

"Ronnie Henshaw?"

"Yeah, make friends with Henshaw, be his best
buddy, so that he'd have access to the core samples and profiles, and
could sneak them out of the USGS lab so that the strapped partners in
OEI could get the backing to start drilling. Tell me something,
Calvin. On a land-based operation like this, over the kind of field
we know exists down there in these rift basins, what would the cost
be?"

"Minimal. And also, you'd have minimal risk of a
dry hole. Maybe no risk at all. All you'd need is a forty-foot
dcrrick and some pipe. When the well came in, you could take down the
derrick and install a small-bore boom to the beach to load
shoal-draft barges with the crude. I can't say how long you could
operate before you were found out. Tuckernuck's not that widely
visited. I know the commuter planes fly over it daily, but then
again, part of it is wooded. If the ships were loaded at night, it
might be a long while before anybody even caught on. But assuming
only a few months, you'd still make a lot of money."

"And how long before any legal action would be
effective?" asked Mary.

Calvin Beard shrugged. "Maybe just a few months.
Maybe a year or more. Hell, maybe they could fight the injunction in
court and keep the well going indefinitely. But I doubt it. I think
secrecy at the outset would be vital. And the people they'd contact
to come in on the venture would be wildcatters, not major oil
companies."

We all looked out over the water, not saying
anything.

"It's a good thing Jack's not here to hear what
could happen to his whales," Mary said.

"You're not kidding," I said. "Or Art
Hagstrom, or any of the other people at Woods Hole. So . . . what do
we do now?"

"What we do," said Joe, "is make a
plan to get these guys in the net, and at the same time charge them
with first degree murder. I think the link is going to be Alice
Henderson, or maybe her brother. Either one of them, or perhaps both,
are the link between Andy Cunningham and OEI. As for the oil venture,
we're going to need some evidence. And for that, I'm going to call
the Coast Guard."